There is chaos at HMP Pentonville.
A piercing alarm alerted what prison officials described as an “incident”. There was the sound of metal doors slamming, locks rattling, and shouts and screams from inmates as officers raced to see what was happening. We ran behind them when they went to where the problem was.
The cell door and the painted white bar were the only sights as we passed through this chaotic and nervous environment.
A muffled walkie-talkie told me it was a case of self-harm. An inmate who had been locked up all day had carved “mom and dad” on his arm with a sharp object. A quick glance at the cell and saw the blood. The prison officer bent over, stemming the flow.
The BBC has been granted rare access to HMP Pentonville men’s prison in north London amid a major crisis for prisons in England and Wales.
next week, with prisons across the country running out of cells for new inmatesthe government will release some offenders at the beginning of the controversial plan aimed at easing the overwhelming pressure on the system on the brink of collapse.
For two days in Pentonville this week, we faced the reality of this crisis.
The pressure on the staff is great. In just half a day, we heard six alarms. The day before there were more than 30. Prison officers did not know what was going on behind the locked and closed door. Blood, violence or even death are all possibilities.
Shay Dhury has been a prison officer here for almost five years and says he has never seen anything this bad. Recently, both of his wrists were broken when he tried to separate two gang members during a fight. He believes gang-related crime is one of the reasons why there are so many people in prisons, particularly Pentonville.
“They go for each other – and when two go, the other goes,” he said. “It’s the end of us just trying to stop the war. Sometimes it gets messy – stressful, yes.
HMP Pentonville was built in 1842 and has remained structurally unchanged for 180 years. Originally designed to hold 520 people in a single cell, it now has an operational capacity of 1,205, with two prisoners packed into each cell.
The prison was dangerously close to capacity – with only nine beds left when he was there. And humans are not the only inmates here: rats and cockroaches abound.
The government says Pentonville represents the challenges facing an aging, inner-city prison with a transient population with diverse and complex needs.
More than 80% of Pentonville’s inmates are on remand, meaning they are awaiting trial. The rest have been convicted of serious crimes including murder, rape, and drug offenses.
Remands are at a 50-year high in England and Wales – and this is partly down to the backlog in the criminal courts. Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures show the Crown Court system has a backlog of more than 60,000 cases. The Magistrates Court has a backlog of over 300,000 cases.
HMP Pentonville
- It costs £48,949 to keep prisoners at Pentonville for a year, £52.4m for the entire population.
- 57% of inmates live in overcrowded accommodation
- Those who are not in training or education spend only one hour a day out of the cell
- 104 incidents of self-harm were recorded in March 2024 – the most in a single month since records began.
- There were seven suicides in prison between 2019 and 2023
Source: Prison performance data 2022 to 2023
Tom – not his real name – was arrested. Small cell. It was about 2m x 1.8m (2m x 1.8m) long and smelled of urine, faeces and rotting food. A bunk bed takes up most of the space. The toilet, in the corner next to the sink, was leaking and there was wet urine on the floor.
“I’ve been telling them for three weeks,” Tom said. “I can fix it – I’m actually a plumber – but there’s no washing machine there.”
Overcrowding affects all areas of life inside. With fewer officers for the inmates, the needs of prisoners could not be met, meaning that some, like Tom, lived in unusable cells for weeks when repairs were needed.
Michael Lewis bet for drug violations. He is 38 and has been in and out of jail for years, but hopes this will be his last stint.
“It’s hard to rehabilitate yourself in a place where you have gang violence, zip code wars, drug violence, money wars,” he said, highlighting how overstretched their staff is.
“They tried to do this, this, this and this – but now you want help too? So it’s hard.”
He told me about the night he woke up to find his former cellmate trying to hang himself.
“I knew he wasn’t dead because he was still breathing, he was still warm,” Lewis said, describing the wait for prison officers to arrive to help.
“They can’t open their own doors at night — locks and all, a security risk,” Lewis explained. “Waiting for another member of staff – and when he came in, he saw him.
“He survived.”
‘I’d rather die’
I have been to several prisons and the conditions in Pentonville are the worst I have ever seen.
The staff seem to be doing what they can in very difficult situations, fighting problems, crises, and violence – but they are often struggling.
Sixteen people will be released here next week as the government releases thousands of offenders early. The prison’s governor, Simon Drysdale, said it would ease some of the pressure and mean more people sent to Pentonville – a reception prison serving all London courts – could be transferred to other jails because they would also have more cells. .
“Our total focus is on making sure we have the space and the capacity,” Mr Drysdale said. “It requires a lot of thinking space and a lot of staff time, and because of that, we don’t spend as much time as we would like to put people into more meaningful work.”
But some Pentonville inmates doubt the 16 inmates released here will make a difference. One, who did not want to be filmed, spoke to us while crouched on the floor with his back to the wall.
“Nothing will change,” she said through tears.
“They don’t care about us. I’d rather die.”
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, support and advice is available through BBC Action Line.